Challenge Update

Remember that Twitter challenge from my last post? I forgot about the Twitter part. Ha…
To be fair, I’ve been posting to Twitter almost every day I write. That hasn’t been every day, but it’s been a lot more than I was worried it would be!

As of today, my new story contains about 23,000 words. Woohoo! Not as many as I hoped, but who cares?? It’s 23,000 new words!

(Personal aside: This is me, on a challenge. Some people set rigid goals; I only look like I do. I told myself I wanted a whole novel done, but will I say, “Gosh, what an awful writer I am – I only wrote half a novel in six weeks!” ? Of course not. My goals are simply motivational tools so I shoot high and land higher than I would have without them. In fact, I purposely set goals I know are pretty much impossible. Maybe it’s the “gifted slacker” mentality I grew up with. Whatever it is, I’m not actually a goal-oriented person. I don’t need to beat records or show up other people or their expectations. It’s nice to engage in word sprints with other people and be named the winner, but…enh. I’m in it more for the camaraderie. I get my warm fuzzies from the journey, not the destination. So just remember that: I will never “win” a challenge I set for myself, but I only “lose” if I forget about it or give up. I find this is much more motivational for me than things like NaNoWriMo, which emphasize the finish line. That’s just me and the way I work; YMMV.)

It occurred to me as I sat down for today’s session that 23k is almost a novella. In fact, that’s about how much I have left to write on the next 13 Colonies story. And how cool would it be if I released “The Shot Heard ‘Round the Planet” on the same day as the actual shot heard ’round the world was fired? Pretty darn, at least for the history buff I am. 🙂

Granted, it’d be close. I’d have to upload it April 17th or 18th to ensure it went on sale the right day. I have exactly 6 weeks to finish the sandpaper draft, revise to rough, edit to beta, wait for beta response, edit to gamma, polish, format, and upload. As well as contract art to be finished in 2-3 weeks. That’s a pretty darn tight time frame.

But then, wasn’t that the whole point of the novella series to begin with, at least in part? To be able to release something new within my zany home schedule that won’t take an eon to create?

I say, let’s do this thing!

Now I just need to find my notes, import into Scrivener, and get a better handle on the plot so I can figure out what was wrong with the last scene that made me stop writing it. (I think it had something to do with the central character of the scene being a Person of Color and my getting bogged down in what message I wanted to convey with him. But that’s just a guess.)